


Daddy Do You Love Me

by orange_8_hands



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5 Things, Angels, Angels are Dicks, Character Study, Family, Fangirls, Father-Daughter Relationship, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Godstiel: Cas as God, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Vessels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:22:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/pseuds/orange_8_hands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Tale of Honesty About Jimmy Novak, performed by Claire Novak in the Five Stages of Grief</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daddy Do You Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> Titles of chapters taken from lines of dialogue Castiel or Jimmy spoke. Basically canon-compliant to 6.22 and goes AU after the first bit of 7.1.

_i. I am not your father._  
  
You don't think about it much. You have a mom who loves you and a dad who loves you and it's like apple-pie normal, Church on Sundays and families way more dysfunctional than yours on TV.  You ~~have~~ had all that. And now you don't; now you have an excuse for bad poetry and bad grades and ditching school, you have an excuse to turn into someone driven into bad decisions by a missing father (there's probably a joke about running away from the radio ad office in there, he wasn't leaving _you_ ) except your mom is there with a quiet voice saying _no_ and none of that actually happens. You join an art class and Mom learns to cook better and after three months the whispers in Church turn to Paul Hovin's not so secret love affair and the world keeps turning. There's no dad to tuck you in at night or make you pancakes for breakfast or the million of other things Dad, your Dad with his black hair and your eyes used to do, and maybe it _burnshurtstearsrips_ but you honestly don't think about it much.  
  
Susan has two moms and Mark lives with his Grandpa and Lana lives with about fifty people who all claim some form of cousin and you live with your mom. It's simple, actually. Your routine really doesn't change. Dinner is at 6:30 every night and mom lets you read two chapters of Harry Potter before lights out and school still has Mr. Miggin who gives you a math quiz every Wednesday morning and Ashley is still dating Kyle which is just not fair.  
  
And honestly, you don't think about it much. There's not really anything to think about. So Dad doesn't want to be your dad anymore, or mom's husband, and it's fine. So he'd rather run away. So he'd rather disappear. It's _fine_. Jonny's big brother ran away three years ago and nobody's heard from him since. And unlike them, you can take a hint. You do not put up posters with a picture of your Dad wearing mickey ears from your trip to Florida when you were seven asking to please call this number because you miss him like every metaphor of loss you've ever heard. You're twelve. You haven't heard that many.  
  
You do a school project on pyramids. You enter an art show and don't win any prizes because this isn't an after school special. Mom gets the promotion she was aiming for and let's you go out for cheeseburgers to celebrate. Susan and you stop talking for three days and it sucks because no one else watches Dr. Sexy and suddenly Johnny Drake is back as a ghost. Roger comes by and cleans the gutters even though Mom was going to hire Willy Matthews to do it for a few twenties. It's just life, and the world keeps on spinning, and that's the way it goes.  
  
You remember - you're on the bus and Mark is sick so you're basically riding it alone and suddenly there's this noise, this steady voice talking quietly five seats from you and you remember Mom sitting Dad down and saying _Jimmy_ , saying _Jimmy stop this, or I will take Claire_ and he said _okay_ , he said _sorry_. And it's not like the memory matters, it really doesn't, because saying sorry doesn't change the fact he got dressed in that suit Mom kept threatening to toss out because it was too big on him these days and it didn't look right for Church. It really doesn't matter the way he looked at you, or what he said, or even why he did it. Something came up, something more important than you and _I'm so proud of you_ and _I love you_. Something changed, because he didn't want to be a dad anymore, didn't want to be _your_ Dad, and you honestly don't think about it much.  
  
You don't play what-ifs. You don't play time games and maybe tomorrow it will be different, maybe tomorrow he'll be there when you get home from school. You don't play over and over again in your head the speech you'd give if he came back to the door and rang the bell (Mom changed the locks, he'll have to at least knock) and asked to see you. You don't perfect what you'll say, the _how dare you_ and _you left Mom_ and _you left me,_ and you don't imagine what it would be like to hug him again, because you don't think he's going to come back and apologize and fix all the things he left broken in his departure.  
  
There's nothing to fix. He doesn't want to be your dad and it's fine, it really is. You don't think about him leaving, him gone, him and the huge sized hole of Dad he left behind, but if you did, if you really did think about it, well there's only one conclusion you can deride from the facts like Mrs. Bolkin's tells you to in science class.  
  
You don't want to be his daughter anyway.

  
ii. _The only thing important to me is you and Claire._  
  
Nothing is sacred.  
  
The horror story of demons and angels and your family lays inside the pages between a crappy cover, tangible proof of your family laid out like sacrifices, bodies just tools. (You both said yes and your mother will never understand what it means to utter that word.)  
  
You find out about voices your father heard and your mother's threats (they are pleas for you from him) and an angel named Castiel who took your father away in his suit only after disavowing all of your relationship with one line. (He's big on fathers, Castiel. You think he would have understood what it meant to lose one. You have no ID and no money to drink a liquor store.)  
  
Holy man or holy bloodline, your father gave himself up to keep you from following. You said yes and he said yes and you understand, you _get it_ , you do; this part of the story you were there for and when a loved one bleeds out on a concrete floor you grab for the first deal that can stop it. He's your father and that was your mother and Sam and Dean aren't the only ones who understand family. You say yes because an Angel is the only game in town and you haven't read the books yet, haven't been touched by an Angel yet, and boy was Sunday School wrong but it's only after the fact you can realize it.  
  
It's not the second one that haunts you anyways, playing over and over like one more viewing can stop it. You survived and it feels like dying, this knowledge that you are saved and he is not. What exactly do you tell a therapist, you ask your Mom. He didn't die for your sins he chained himself to a comet for your life.  
  
(Castiel came to you and spoke of blessings, spoke of family, and more fool you, you believed him, you did not know what you know now, you did not know father was something he could not claim when he said you had none. Castiel said _I can save him_ and five months of being gone does not negate twelve years of being around. You said yes. You said yes before he finished the question.)  
  
But it is not your crimes on display in the pages that match words to blood stains and ink to pain. You are but a footnote in your own family sorrow. You are but an after thought in your father's pleas.  
  
(If he was so worried about losing his family why did he say yes the first time?)  
  
They are distasteful, these stories. Others talk about shipping and fandoms and meta. They talk about symbolism, about how much Castiel loves Dean and how much Dean loves Sam and how much your father loves you because he was just a regular man, just an average man hey check out this Jimmy guy he gave it all up to save his daughter. They talk about Cas like he's someone they love, someone they sympathize with, this creature who stole your Dad and would have stolen you too. They talk about him saving the world but they don't talk about all the ones he destroyed, that he let Sam out of his cage and would have stood aside for a town to be decimated and sent Anna back to to be tortured in Heaven and wore your father like a cheap coat.  
  
(It's human, to be so petty and selfish. Isn't that what the Angels say? Maybe they should look into a mirror.)  
  
You bring this up but no one wants to hear it. Cas didn't know better. Cas is doing better. Cas is on Team Free Will.  
  
Cas was in you. Castiel poured himself inside of you and drowned you. Castiel used your body and spun his lies so your father would say yes again, because he knew Dean would respond better to your father's figure than yours. Castiel tasted like doubt and still did all of this. Castiel wears your father's shoes and his tie and his coat and his face. It's not that Castiel laughed at prays you sent flinging out nightly asking for a sign, for understanding, for acceptance on why your house of three only holds two; it's that he didn't even notice them. It's that you have two missing neighbors and no way to explain demons in their bodies. It's that you are his second vessel, his last choice, and all he could manage to do was _look at you_ in place of an apology. It's that Castiel took a body and killed your father and never even called to tell you, you had to read it in a book, long after the fact.  
  
Castiel can go fuck himself. Your father can too.

  
 _iii. God will provide_.  
  
According to the books you are Caitlin and your mother is Amy and your dad is Jack. Your family seem to be the only people with pseudonyms. You find out FBI Agent Victor Henrickson died in an explosion and so did wanted fugitives Dean and Sam Winchester. You find out Carver Edlund is a prophet and didn't even realize it. You wonder if he changes _all_ the names after that story. You wonder if an Archangel was protecting him from being found, (a skill Castiel definitely doesn't have, just see your story) because he disappeared from fangirls who think this is something more and know how to track people down, but the books still came out like clockwork, this strange schedule of self-publishing no other book series has ever had, like he finishes writing them and then hits print immediately. Maybe it's part of the compulsion of a prophet, to have your word out there and read and gathered around like all of it is true, and not just a very kind interpretation on so many things.  Even after an Archangel is caught in a trap no one can find him.  
  
Watching the world out of the corner of your eye is tiring. You keep expecting your father's rough voice to speak just behind you, see a flash of his hair in a crowd and chase after it like the man underneath it will turn out to be him. Your father is dead, and still being worn by an angel, and learned why he couldn't find you afterwards if those other two things weren't true anyways, but they are, the end. You can't call Castiel back to switch out your father for you because whether your father is in the fields of the Lord he promised or not, Castiel won't do it. (You've tried. You've broken your voice shouting promises to the sky.)  
  
The world doesn't end because your father is gone. (The world doesn't end, period, because apparently cars can remind people about bonds beyond Archangels and jump into Hell for them. You'd write to the publisher about what a crappy ending but it was reality, and you're not surprised by crappy endings in the real world anymore.) You still go to school. You compromise with your mother, and go to Church for special occasions. You end up in a store during Christmas season smashing little angels with big blue eyes and dark hair, and in Court you end up with a fine your mother can't afford and more hours of community service than you think you'll ever be able to fulfill. You're smart enough not to ask if you can get an Angel to show up and give you a character witness if you'll get a smaller punishment. Castiel wouldn't do you any favors anyways.  
  
You grow up. For your sixteenth birthday you and your mother finally get anti-possession tattoos and it feels just that much safer. You don't do sleepovers at other people's places because you don't know how to explain why you want to build salt lines, but they come over and don't know about diagrams under your carpet and what's in that glass of water they're drinking from. You start to study Latin and have absolutely no natural skills with it; the angelic leftover from Castiel wearing you for twenty minutes is basically the feeling of having your mind submerged with no way out. Lends itself to nightmares, not talents.  
  
And that seems to be what you have, what you get, from an angelic bloodline. A missing family member and the worry one day something will see you and know exactly what you are and will kill you for it. A horrifying memory you try to keep locked away to just bad dreams. A wonder at how many things go bump in the night.  
  
At least when you kiss a demon you get something you _want_ first.

  
 _iv. What do you want from me?_  
  
You are not God's child, you want to explain. You are Jimmy's. You are Jimmy's and Amelia's daughter and the only words you have for God are _no_ , and they don't even matter because you've never spoken to him face-to-face.  
  
You go on talk shows. They ask about Angels. They ask about God. They read passages from those stupid fucking books with lead-ins about the missing author. Sometimes they have you on with victims the Winchesters saved. People who claim they had demons in them. Laws are being re-written, cops are adding more things to their gun belts, witches are strung up and shapeshifters are shot and oops, guess he was human. There's apparently a support network in place to help Hunters ease their transition to the civilian (non-killing, non-stealing) world. You meet religious leaders. People throw out prays to you, light candles in your name, ask favors and explanations and burn crosses with the promise to see you on them. Your Sunday School teacher becomes famous and your Pastor moves up the ranks. Becky becomes one of the leading authorities on the Winchesters, and news networks just edit out whenever she gets into the incest part of things.  
  
You smile and nod because your mother looks broken and you look cracked and the bodyguards around you are government-sanctioned to watch you carefully and report everything. You are moved to a compound and don't leave except to say things like "God moves in mysterious ways" and "There is a plan" and "Keep calm" on national TV. You meet politicians and celebrities and spend your time on planes and in small rooms across the world and these people look at you like you have _answers_. Like you and your father planned this whole thing out, and they're just waiting for you to explain when exactly you will be debuting your death for all their sins, and quick aside there's no actual Rapture right only you're going to do the suffering and we'll go to Heaven later yeah thanks for this. They look at you like Castiel is God, but you know exactly who Castiel is, even if he does share some traits _all_ the Gods - including the one in the Bible - seem to share. (Smiting and worshiping before all others seem to be his main themes, after all.) He clears up a few things - sexual orientation, abuse, racism, the _environment_ ; liberals seem to like him a lot, even if the New Age speaker fires gave them pause.  
  
Mostly you sit on a couch and watch TV with your mother and listen to the most worrisome death threats your bodyguards are watching for. There's no cameras or listening devices in the room at least, though it's not like you and Mom have big secrets waiting to be spilled. Every few days Crowley comes by and gets rid of them and reminds you of key points to say in speeches and is what you imagine a PR person does, with more alcohol.  
  
"But you're a demon," you said, the first time he popped up.  
  
He toasted you with a glass full of amber liquid. "Better health plan, this way."  
  
He explains a few things, along the way. Why no one has stepped forward as Lisa and Ben or anybody else who saw Dean during his time off. Why there are some really disturbing reports about some things Sam did when he was supposed to be in Hell. What exactly is going to happen with Cas being the new God. (To wit: memory erasing and item removal on a massive scale, soullessness, everyone is fucked.) You never forget behind all the personality and orders is a demon; you are not Sam and you will not ignore it entirely. But he also helps keep you sane, keeps you grounded, and even if he doesn't mean to, would sooner kill you or use you if he could figure out a way around the protective shields Castiel has surrounded you in, he at least is one of the few that still understands underneath the enormous power is still Castiel, and that asshole has a lot to answer for.  
  
"So are Dean and Sam going to save us?" you ask one night, TV screen coating the room in a soft blue glow, your body slumped over like the strings have finally been cut.  
  
He looks at you with almost pity. Pity from a demon. You'd laugh, but it's not worth the effort.  
  
"No."

  
 _v. ~~My name is Jimmy Novak. I'm from Pontiac, Illinois.~~ _ _I'm your new God. A better one._  
  
You find out certain things, over the years.  You are the only empty Vessel that hasn't been destroyed. Demons (including Crowley) are no longer a concern; neither are Angels. Neither are monsters, though that was never on your list of things to fear. You try to expand your mind and remember every word you say about anything counts. (It always did, it could be argued, but now it does on an international scale.) There are more humans who love you than hate you, but the ones who don't say anything at all are the scariest. You use the tattoos of your body to teach people protection from things they no longer need protecting from. You hold dying babies and dying children and dying adults and you grant them the forgiveness they beg for because it's not really forgiveness they want, it's peace of mind. Four people have placed themselves between you and danger and died for it; hundreds have been killed in your name, or done the killing for it.  
  
You meet the Winchesters again. Both look old and broken and it's easy to see they are missing something vital. Dean pats you on the shoulder. Sam grimaces sympathetically. They are not who you wanted them to be, but they aren't really the people you hated either. The only afterlife left these days is oblivion, even if you three seem to be the only people who know it, and you do not doubt they yearn for it.  
  
Your breath no longer hitches when you see him. You no longer clench in anger (in desperate need) when your father's voice appears. Your mother does not cry, and does not clasp your hand, and does not pray. You don't either; there's nothing to say to your father's face when your father isn't behind it.  
  
You do good work. When they ask, you say they need to repent for their own sins. You are not a martyr for people who harm, and those are the only ones who ask you to.  
  
You would give your life for your father, but he did it for you first.


End file.
